Lessons from My Grandmother (whoa.)

WINNERS: Of Hank book of choice: Cate Noble. Of Sandra Parshall's book: Flora Church. Of LynDee Walker's: Kathy Reel. Of Jim Jackson's: Hallie Ephron. (Jim is choosing another winner, too..!) Please contact Hank with your snail mail address!

My mom, because I can;t find a photo of Gramma

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My Gramma, Minnie, taught me to type. And knit and crochet, and make little pancakes, and put together a persuasive argument. (She did not know she was teaching me that particular thing.) She was gorgeous, sleek and white haired, and could make this fabulous coffee/chocolate cake. She left me the recipe, in her handwriting on an index card, which  begins something like this:

Ingredients

Flour

Butter

Coffee

Chocolate

Needless to say, we could never replicate that cake. And I know she would be happy to hear that.

The fabulously talented Hilary Davison had a cool grandmother, too. 

Lessons From My Grandmother

By Hilary Davidson

Hilary's Nannie

If you know me at all, you know that my grandmother had a tremendous influence on me. Her name was Maude — though I called her Nannie — and I’m proud to say she was quite the dame. With her red lipstick and perfectly waved black hair, her sharp suits and high heels, she could’ve been cast in one of the classic Hollywood noir films she loved so much.

I dedicated my latest book, Blood Always Tells, to her. It reads, “In loving memory of my grandmother, Maude Elizabeth Dallas, for teaching me that if you’re going to sin, sin big.” It’s a joke that she would’ve appreciated. She loved saying, “If you’re going to sin, sin big,” which was one of the reasons she seemed so unlike other people’s grandmothers to me (there was also her love of pro wrestling). The stereotypical grandmother is supposed to be sweet. Mine was hot-tempered, affectionate, loyal, and uproariously funny. Sweet, not so much.

Nannie had a saying for every occasion. Her words regularly pop into my mind, along with her voice, which never lost its crisp Northern Irish accent. They were never intended as advice about writing, but I’ve adopted some of them along the way for that very purpose. Maybe it’s no surprise that a dame who adored the films of Barbara Stanwyck and Tyrone Power could dole out advice on writing with more than a hint of noir. But these are some of the things I’ve learned from her.

As you live your life, so you dread your neighbor

Hilary's Nannie and family

I remember being puzzled by this saying for a long time, until one day, I caught myself doing something that had annoyed me when another person had done it. “But this is an exception!” my brain insisted. “This is different.” But I knew that it wasn’t, and that my brain was using fuzzy logic and making a pretzel of itself to insist on the difference. It’s one of the reasons I find people so fascinating. We carry these contradictions around inside, and they ring true if we don’t examine them too closely.

It’s something I keep in mind when creating characters, because they contain that duality. In Blood Always Tells, there’s a character named Desmond who is frustrated by his sister’s secretiveness; naturally, Desmond is carrying around his own secrets, too. When he does it, he’s protecting his sister, but her? She’s just secretive… (This is why I’m never surprised when a government official famous for making pronouncements about family values turned out to have a lover or ten on the side.)

The best in the world can be done without

When Nannie said this, she was usually cutting self-important people down to size. She didn’t have much regard for people who considered themselves indispensible, because the world, sooner or later, would dispense with them. It was also tinged with a bit of memento mori, though. There’s a warning embedded in it to never think you’re indispensible yourself.

Unlike, say, George R.R. Martin, I’m one of those writers who finds it hard to kill a character. It’s not that I’m opposed to the idea, in theory. Many of my plots are built around a murder, so I know I’ll be killing someone along the line, and I’m fine with that. But theory is different from practice. After I’ve spent time writing a character and really getting under their skin, it’s painful to imagine killing them. My brain will contort itself, puzzling out how to keep that character alive. I’ve had sleepless nights over the issue. But I’m always guided, in the end, by my grandmother’s words. 

Nannie and Grandpa

What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh

Of all Nannie’s sayings, this is the one I struggle with the most. The idea behind it is that heredity is destiny, and that your genes may well be rooting against you. I agree with that to a point — and scientifically, I know there’s some truth in it — but I believe that it’s possible to overcome a genetic inheritance. Blood Always Tells is filled with this tension of nature versus nurture partly because this question fascinates me so. After all, if all a human being can be is the sum of their genes, how can you hold people responsible for what they do? I’m interested in exploring how people try to change their fates, and how they find the strength to go on when they know the deck is stacked against them. It’s something I think my grandmother herself managed to do when she crossed an ocean and came to Canada looking for a better life for her family.

If you’re going to sin, sin big

This is my all-time favorite. My grandmother wasn’t advocating sin as such, but she hated halfway measures. If you were going to do something, do it with your whole heart rather than timidly putting a toe forward to test the waters. This is advice that’s resonated with me, and it’s a big part of the reason I became a writer. Nannie believed that you had to put your heart and soul into whatever you did, because once you went off on your own path—in a big way or a small way—you were going to face the consequences for it. Not that she feared consequences. As she was also known to say, “Consequences be damned.”

HANK: Go Nannie!  So what have you all learned from your grandmothers?  And a copy of  BLOOD ALWAYS TELLS to one lucky commenter!  (Oh: the winner of Sandra Parshall's POISONED GROUND  is Flora! EMail me and send me your address!)

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Hilary Davidson’s life of crime started with Thuglit, which published her first three short stories. In 2011, she won Anthony Award for Best First Novel for THE DAMAGE DONE, the novel that launched the Lily Moore series, which also includes THE NEXT ONE TO FALL and EVIL IN ALL ITS DISGUISES. Hilary’s work has also won two Ellery Queen Readers Choice Awards, a Crimespree Award, and a Spinetingler Award, and she's been a Derringer Award finalist. Her fourth novel — and first standalone thriller — BLOOD ALWAYS TELLS, was published by Tor/Forge on April 15, 2014. According to reviewer Oline Cogdill, it's "a heartfelt, energetic story about greed, entitlement and the unbreakable bonds between siblings who never stop believing in each other."

BLOOD ALWAYS TELLS

Dominique Monaghan just wanted to get even with her two-timing, married boyfriend, a washed-up boxer stuck in a toxic marriage to a dangerously spoiled socialite. However, an elaborate blackmail scheme soon lands her in the middle of an unexpected kidnapping... and attempted murder. But who is actually out to kill whom?

Desmond Edgars, Dominique’s big brother, has looked out for his wayward sister ever since their mother was convicted of murdering many years ago, so when he receives a frantic phone call from Dominique in the middle of the night, he drops everything to rush to the rescue. But to find out what has really happened to his sister, the stoic ex-military man must navigate a tangled web of murder and deception, involving a family fortune, a couple of shifty lawyers, and a missing child, while wrestling with his own bloody secrets...

Hilary Davidson's Blood Always Tells is a twisted tale of love, crime, and family gone wrong, by the multiple award–winning author of The Damage Done and Evil in All Its Disguises.

Hilary Davidson

The Damage Done (Forge, 2010), The Next One to Fall (Forge, 2012) + Evil in All Its Disguises (Forge, 2013)

Coming soon: Blood Always Tells (Forge, April 15, 2014)

http://www.hilarydavidson.com

What Sara Says

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Jim Jackson is such a numbers guy! He's the only author I've ever heard who describes rejections by weight. And--because Jim can talk about math in a fascinating way--it actually makes sense.

And what do Sara Paretsky and peanut butter have in common? Jim can explain that, too.

Keeping Faith

    by James M. Jackson

 After I finished my “practice novel” and had it rejected by tons of agents (I figure it at 7.5 tons: 100 agents at an assumed average 150 lbs.) I despaired. Mostly the feedback was a simple rejection, but on several occasions the feedback included a statement that they couldn’t sell it people my protagonist didn’t fit what people were reading.

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to take a master class from one of my favorite authors. Sara Paretsky taught the class in conjunction with a Love is Murder conference. She gave us an exercise to write using as fodder several seemingly random words. (I remember peanut butter being one.) 

We shared our pieces aloud, and mine felt pathetic compared to most of the other offerings.

But after the class was over, Sara came over to me and told me that I had an interesting voice and I shouldn’t let people try to change it. At the time I had no clue exactly what that meant, but I knew enough to realize she was talking about my writing, not my dulcet baritone.

When I eventually understood what she meant by voice, Sara’s little pat on the back became only one of two gifts from her. Her second was her own example. When she wrote her first VI Warshawski novel (published 1982) people weren’t reading books about female PIs. A few such novels existed, and when it came to women, people seemingly cared more about “Charlie’s Angels” than about a realistic woman.

Which did not stop Sara or Sue Grafton. They wrote what they wanted and changed the rules for female crime protagonists.

I wanted to write about Seamus McCree—a good guy; a guy who cares deeply for his son, a guy who struggles with relationships; a guy with a strong sense of right and wrong, but who is faced with choices that are shaded in grays; a guy who abhors violence because he senses he is carrying anger inside himself; a guy who has succeeded financially in the world, but knows that isn’t really what matters.

 I chose to write about financial crimes because those are what interest me, and I can explain complex finances in ordinary English that people can understand.

Sara by word and example gave me permission to write the kind of book I wanted to read, regardless of whether an agent ever wanted to represent it. After writing about Seamus for several years I now think of him as a mash-up of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport and Winnie the Pooh.

 

Midwest Review concluded its recommended pick review of Cabin Fever, “With its combination of social consciousness, political action, intrigue, and family relationships, Cabin Fever will satisfy any mystery or thriller reader."

To that wonderful black and white statement, I’ll add some gray. If a mystery reader wants a nice cozy they’ll find I use some bad language and show some violence. And I don’t write a superhero who singlehandedly saves the world. I do have faith though that there are enough readers who will like my protagonist and want to read my kind of writing.

If that’s the kind of book you’d like to read wrapped in a fast-paced story, then give me a try. I hope you’ll enjoy Seamus and his friends, because if enough of you do, I get to keep writing about them.

Regardless, I am enjoying my writing. So Reds, anything you were told is a waste of your time that you knew deep down was bad advice?

HANK: Bad advice. Huh. Still thinking about that. But good advice? How about this: Leave a comment for us, and we will give a copy of the Jim-book of your choice to one lucky winner!  

 

James Montgomery Jackson
"Writing about when Honesty Isn't Everything"
CABIN FEVER (Seamus McCree mystery #2) Released April 8, 2014
BAD POLICY (Seamus McCree mystery #1) [2013]
ONE TRICK AT A TIME: How to start winning at bridge [2012]
Website: http://jamesmjackson.com

I Think, Therefore I Think I Can

     HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I'm sorry, I'm laughing. Of all the existential imponderables in the universe-- 

what the heck is a Higgs Boson

what happened before the big bang

are unit prices really correct

 is canned tuna actually tuna

why does the mail come at so many different times depending on the day,

why does our blog change font and spacing randomly and unfixably

how do banks keep track of all those checks

and when the sign in the airport says "You Are Here," how does it know?

 -- the fabulous and talented LynDee Walker proves there is one, big, juicy question that is the unanswerable of unanswerables: 

   How are we supposed to DO all this?

Hang On, Be Right There

   by Lyn Dee Walker

      Distractions. In the age of the iPhone push alert, they’re an ever-present part of life for many of us.

       Not a day goes by that I don’t log into Facebook to see one (or forty) of my author friends declaring that they’re turning off wifi so they can actually, you know, write. There are even computer programs that will block your access to the Internet at certain times of the day. While that feels a little too much like a challenge for my rebellious side, I have several friends who use them and sing their praises.

       I’m just as guilty as the next author of being pulled from my work-in-progress by something shiny on the Internet, but this week, the appeal of Facebook pales in comparison to my house.    

I have three children—10, 5, and 3. They are my light, and the best thing that ever happened to me. Hence, they are often the tallest hurdle between me and writing. I love my babies with the fire of ten thousand suns. Spending time with them makes me happy. So it’s a constant juggling act, with lots of balls to keep in the air.

      Normally, I write in the morning after the older two have left for school and before the little one gets out of bed. And if something interferes with that, I can fit in 1,000 words or so at nap time, or in the evening after my hubby is through working for the day.

     This week is the perfect storm of mommy writer indecision in my house, y’all: I need to finish my new book in the next ten days. Writing isn’t a luxury right now: it’s a must.

      It is also Spring Break. My hubby is out of town. And that whole saying about the best laid plans? Yeah. They’re not working for me, either.

      My ten-year-old is very math-and-science-brained. She loves charts and graphs. I can already tell she’s going to be a spreadsheet person, just like her dad. Yesterday, she made a pretty poster we could use to check off my word count goal for the week in 500-word increments. We taped it to the kitchen wall.

       This morning, I came downstairs ready to open my laptop and knock off a couple of checkmarks before the children woke up. Then my BFF called with mommy worries about a super-feverish baby (the doctor couldn’t see him until 11), and by the time we’d talked through the childhood illness checklist, my littles were awake.

      Now, I’m pretty darned good at tuning out noise while I write. Years of working in a newsroom will do that to you. Scanners bleeping, sports guys tossing Nerf footballs and arguing about who has the best arm in whichever pro sports league is going at the moment, phones ringing, editors shouting: if you’re easily distracted, you never finish a story. I could get so lost in writing an article or designing a page my own phone could buzz with a transferred call and I wouldn’t notice until the receptionist walked to my desk and put her hand between my face and the screen. That’s a finely-honed ability to ignore, y’all.

      My children are enterprising, though. They adapt. The better I am at focusing on my work, the more they step up their game.

       My smallest one, who is so cute you just want to smother her with hugs all day long (I’m a teensy bit biased. But only a bit) has an internal timer. If I sit with my laptop for more than half an hour, she walks over and matter-of-factly closes it, with the sweetest smile you’ve ever seen. “Are you finished with your work, mommy?” she asks.

I am now.

*Yelp*Crash*

Oops. Stand by, y’all.

*********

      Okay, I’m back. To prove my point, in the past thirty-five seconds, my little one asked for help getting her dress off (yes, off, at 11:30 in the morning. Because she can). Freedom from her clothing inspired her to hold my face between her hands and sing me three verses of “Let It Go.”

      While she belted out the final chorus, my son tripped over the dog (our dog weighs six pounds and is less than a foot long from nose to pointed tail. You’d almost have to try to trip over her) and vaulted his snow-cone cup into the air. Snow cone splattered all over the white Berber in our living room (inherited from the house’s previous owners, who obviously had no children).

      I’ve now set the computer aside, stripped the baby’s dress off, smiled at her singing, checked on the dog (she’s good. And so happy with her treat it makes me wonder if an instant replay wouldn’t show her slipping underfoot on purpose. She’s smart, that pooch), and scrubbed rainbow ice syrup out of the carpet.

     Where were we?

     Oh, right. Distractions.

     There you have mine for this morning. I’m thinking it’s going to be a coffee and writing after bedtime kind of night in the Walker house.

     What about you, Reds? How do you handle writing distractions?

HANK: HA! (But we'll give a copy of SMALL TOWN SPIN to a lucky commenter!)

LD:   And dear readers—how do you juggle work and family? 

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SMALL TOWN SPIN

When a superstar athlete's son turns up dead in a tiny town on the Virginia coast, crime reporter Nichelle Clarke gets the inside scoop. But she quickly spies a gaping hole her inner Lois Lane cannot ignore.

Determined to unravel the mystery, Nichelle fights off paparazzi cameras and an unexpected rival. She uncovers an illegal moonshine operation, a string of copycat suicides, and a slew of closets stacked with more skeletons than slingbacks. Chasing a killer who’s a breath from getting away with murder, Nichelle realizes too late the culprit has her number—and it might be up.

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LynDee Walker’s award-winning journalistic work has appeared in newspapers and magazines across the nation. After nearly a decade covering crime, courts, and local politics, she left full-time reporting for motherhood with a side of freelancing and fiction writing. LynDee’s debut novel, FRONT PAGE FATALITY, is an amazon and Barnes & Noble #1 bestseller, and an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel. SMALL TOWN SPIN is the third in her Headlines in High Heels mystery series. The fourth arrives January 2015.

LynDee adores her family, her readers, and enchiladas. She works out tricky plot points while walking off the enchiladas. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, where she is either playing with her children or working on her next novel—but probably not cleaning her house. You can find her online at www.lyndeewalker.com.

LynDee Walker

The Headlines in High Heels Mysteries

www.lyndeewalker.com

Get signed copies: Fountain Bookstore

Twitter: @LynDeeWalker

Facebook: LynDee Walker